


equivocation

by youcouldmakealife



Series: always in tandem [54]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 14:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: You know exactly what the sin of omission is, you smug Irish Catholic bastard.The most pernicious kind of lie, probably, all the shit he didn’t say to Robbie, or tried to once or twice and gave up when Robbie clearly wasn’t listening, didn’t want to hear it, all the shit he held back until he felt sick to his stomach every time they talked.He doesn’t want to do that again. He can’t do that again. Even if she hadn’t explicitly told him not to, which she did — he can’t do that again.





	equivocation

Things with Melissa are good. The kind of good Georgie didn’t think he was going to have again, honestly. It sounds maudlin, like he thought his life was over at twenty-one, but then — he thought his life was over at twenty-one. For a long time, it felt like it. He didn’t really move forward, from that to coming to the Caps. Found Daniel, he guesses, which helped. Scabbed over a bit, though it didn’t feel like it when he saw Robbie again, less like he’d been healing and more like he’d just gotten used to how much it hurt.

Things with her aren’t like things were with Robbie, not that overwhelming gut punch, good and bad, but then, Robbie had already been his best friend for over a year when they got together, and Georgie had been stupid for him almost as long. Well, from the start, probably. Even if it started platonically, Georgie was stupid for him from the start. 

It’s not a fair comparison. He knows it’s not a fair comparison. He does his best not to think of it at all, but it’s hard.

The important thing is that it’s good. It’s almost — easy, he guesses. Melissa’s not actually what you’d describe as an easy person, gets snappish after a bad night at work, and is frankly miserable until she’s had at least two cups of coffee, can send him seventeen texts one night and then go radio silent the next one, but it’s — maybe comfortable. It’s comfortable, with her. He feels like he could tell her anything about himself and she’d just say ‘that’s it?’. He guesses bartenders get jaded, quick.

He does, in the end, have to tell her things about himself. Daniel tells him that, though he knew it already. If he wants a relationship, it can’t be with everything festering underneath, him dreading her finding shit out about him. If he wants to be with her, she actually has to know who he is. He would probably have to do it even if he didn’t spend nearly every fucking day with Robbie, but he does, and that complicates things, is the kind of information, withheld, that would torpedo things if he wasn’t the one to tell her.

“So there’s this shit you kind of need to know if we’re together?” Georgie says. Melissa had a good night at work, a big group that was low-maintenance but tipped really well — apparently that’s almost never a thing, so she’s cheerful about it — and the Caps had a win, and they’re both on their first beers of the night, and if there’s a good time for it, it’s now.

“If your criminal record has been sealed, I don’t need to hear about it,” Melissa says, and Georgie snorts. “You sound serious.”

“I am serious,” Georgie says. “It’s kind of a big deal.”

“You’re making me nervous,” Melissa says “You haven’t actually killed anyone, right?”

“Not that I know of?” Georgie asks.

“That’s a reassuring answer,” Melissa says. “Okay, what do I kind of need to know?”

“I —” Georgie says. “I like guys too, for one? My last — my last relationship was with a guy.”

“Okay,” Melissa says, a little slowly.

“If that’s a dealbreaker, or,” Georgie says.

“No,” Melissa says. “I’m — surprised I guess? But no, it’s not.”

“Okay,” Georgie says. “That’s. Good?”

“Yeah,” Melissa said. “You said for one, though.”

“Yeah,” Georgie says.

“So, for two?” Melissa says.

“The guy I was in a relationship with,” Georgie says. “It was — it was pretty serious?”

“Are you not over him, or—” Melissa says.

“He’s kind of on the Caps,” Georgie says over her.

“The Caps, like the Washington Capitals?” Melissa says. “He’s on your team?”

“Yeah,” Georgie says.

“Okay,” she says, even slower than before. “Was this relationship recent, or—”

“It was in college,” Georgie says. “We just kind of — ended up in the same place, after. And I guess — so it’s kind of complicated. Well. It’s really complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Melissa asks.

He doesn’t go into detail, exactly, more than he needs to, because he thinks Robbie would hate him for it — well, hate him more — just hits the most important points. The greatest hits, or, he guesses, the worst blows. He doesn’t bother trying to sugarcoat it. How do you sugarcoat ‘I repeatedly cheated on the love of my fucking life because I was overwhelmed and out of my depth and so fucking lonely during my rookie year and now he hates me and who the fuck can blame him?’ You can’t.

He doesn’t say all of that, but there’s still no way to say, “I cheated on him. A lot.” in a way that’s pretty.

He expects her to say ‘what’s a lot?’, but she doesn’t. He doesn’t even know why he expected it. What does it matter, how many times, how many people? No one’s proudly telling someone else ‘I only cheated on you once’.

“He basically hates my guts,” is ugly too, feels even worse coming out his mouth.

“Okay,” Melissa says, when it’s all out in the open. Georgie’s starting to realize that’s the word she uses when she’s not sure what to say. “I guess you weren’t lying about it being kind of a big deal.”

“No,” Georgie says. “Not really. And if that’s a dealbreaker I totally—”

“It isn’t?” Melissa says. “At least — I need to think about this.”

“I get that,” Georgie says, even as his stomach drops.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Melissa says. Georgie’s not sure how he is. “I really don’t think it is, I just kind of have to like, recalibrate everything in my head about it? And you? But, like. I like you, and this doesn’t actually like — I don’t know. Give me a couple days?”

“Of course,” Georgie says, and when she heads out, he honestly expects to never hear from her again, figures he’d deserve that.

She takes three days, but after that, it’s like it never happened. Or, not like it never happened, exactly, neither of them are pretending it didn’t happen, and she asks some follow up questions at the time, but after that, they don’t talk about it, and Georgie’s desperately relieved.

When it does come up again, it does by necessity. Georgie’s told her plenty about the post-game hangouts, mostly because sometimes she’ll text when he’s out at them, which is always a relief, her bored at work and him bored drinking the obligatory one or two so he’s not branded ‘not a team player’. They still meet up at the gym sometimes, though more often he’ll just head straight to hers. It’s not like he needs the extra workouts, probably shouldn’t have been doing them in the first place, low-impact or not, and she mostly works out before she heads to work now. He’s still surprised when she asks to come to one a few weeks before the end of the regular season.

“Kiera took my Saturday shift, so would it be cool if I came out the bar with you guys after the game, or,” Melissa says, and Georgie knows that ‘or’ is not a great ‘or’. And it’s not that he isn’t cool with it, not that he isn’t serious about her, because he is, or doesn’t want her to, because frankly it’d be nice to have someone who actually likes him there, but —

“Robbie will probably be there,” Georgie says.

“Is that a problem?” Melissa asks. “If you don’t want me to come—”

“No, it’s not that,” Georgie says. “I just — I wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable with that.”

“I mean, he’s on your team,” Melissa says. “So I kind of figured he’d be there.”

“Right,” Georgie says. “Right.”

“Is that a problem?” Melissa asks, tone different now, almost curious.

“He’s just — unpredictable,” Georgie says. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

*

It’s not fine. 

Or, at first it is, the guys are all welcoming to Melissa, certainly more than they were with Georgie at the start, though Georgie doesn’t think he’s imagining the slightly tense look on Elliott’s face when Georgie introduces them. He can’t really blame him for it. Robbie _is_ unpredictable, and Elliott is the most likely candidate to deal with the fall-out if Robbie freaks out about Melissa coming. Well, or Georgie. 

Or Melissa, apparently. She goes to grab them drinks when service takes forever, doesn’t come back for awhile, and Georgie just figures that’s service taking forever at the bar too, but apparently not, because she says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” when she comes back with their beers in hand, tension threaded through her voice.

Melissa hands him his beer once they’re in a semi-private spot — well, not private at all, but it’s by a group of girls that look college-aged and clearly aren’t with their group, which he thinks is the point.

“So I met Robbie,” Melissa says, voice still tense.

Fuck.

“Or like, less met him and more got interrogated by him,” Melissa says. “And I’m not even exaggerating, all that was missing was a steel chair and a light shining right into my eyes.”

“Interrogated you?” Georgie says. 

“Well, I mean, it was less interrogation at first, more cryptic warning not to trust you,” Melissa says. “But then as soon as I told him we weren’t exclusive it definitely got all ‘and you agreed to that, or did he push you into that and are you aware he’s a cheating—’”

“I got it,” Georgie mumbles.

“It was kind of a lot,” Melissa says. 

“Fuck,” Georgie says. “Should I — should I talk to him about it?” 

Fuck, he really doesn’t want to talk to him about it. He doesn’t think it’d go well, and things are good between them right now, or as good as they can get. Civil, maybe, even friendly sometimes, if Robbie’s in a good mood. He doubts that conversation would be civil.

“I think it’s okay?” Melissa says. “Like, he backed off when I told him we agreed on the open relationship from day one, which like, honestly was none of his fucking business, but I didn’t really want to hear any more of the blow by blows, so. He was just…kind of intense. Or like, really intense, honestly.”

“Yeah,” Georgie says. “He can be.”

“Do you always date assholes?” Melissa asks.

“You’re not an asshole,” Georgie says, biting back a defensive ‘Robbie’s not an asshole’. That isn’t even _true_. Hell, Robbie’s _proud_ of it.

“I am absolutely an asshole,” Melissa says. “And proud.”

Melissa might have a point here.

Georgie finds Robbie in the crowd, faster than he’d be able to find anyone else, like there’s still some part of him tuned into him, though apparently it wasn’t working when Robbie cornered Melissa. No Ted for once, just Robbie, looking grim, Elliott, the tension on his face still there, saying something to Robbie that Robbie doesn’t want to be hearing, judging by the stubborn set of his jaw.

“Georgie?” Melissa says, and Georgie looks away, at her.

“Sorry about him,” Georgie says.

Melissa shrugs. “It’s not like you’re responsible for him. You wanna finish these, get out of here?”

“Please,” Georgie says.

*

“He’s still hung up on you,” Melissa says in bed that night, after a movie at her place, a few drinks. Georgie would like to say it’s out of the blue, but, well. It isn’t. He’d already been thinking about Robbie when she said it. Guesses she’d been thinking about Robbie too. 

“I think he’s still angry at me,” Georgie says. “I wouldn’t call it hung up on me.”

“He is,” Melissa says. “And you’re still hung up on him too, by the way.”

Georgie could deny it. Georgie probably should, she probably wants him to, but it’d be a lie, and he doesn’t lie, not in relationships, except for the white kind, the ‘seriously, no one notices the pimple but you’ or ‘don’t feel bad about spilling wine on my shirt, I didn’t really like it anyway’ kind. She asked him not to lie to her from the start, and he won’t.

You know exactly what the sin of omission is, you smug Irish Catholic bastard.

The most pernicious kind of lie, probably, all the shit he didn’t say to Robbie, or tried to once or twice and gave up when Robbie clearly wasn’t listening, didn’t want to hear it, all the shit he held back until he felt sick to his stomach every time they talked.

He doesn’t want to do that again. He can’t do that again. Even if she hadn’t explicitly told him not to, which she did — he can’t do that again.

“Yeah,” Georgie says to the ceiling, because it’s easier than looking at Melissa right now. “Sorry.”

“Everyone’s got baggage,” she says, and it falls somewhere between dismissal and complaint.

“I kind of have a lot of it,” Georgie says. “Just for the record. I’m not expecting you to fix it or anything, that’s my own shit, but you should know that.”

“Okay,” Melissa says. “I mean, yeah, ‘I have to spend every day with my ex who hates me but also clearly isn’t over me’ is — probably a lot.”

Georgie laughs. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“Is this something I need to be worried about, or?” Melissa asks.

“In what way?” Georgie says.

“Like, are you going to come back from a roadie and be like ‘hey, sorry, we got back together’?” Melissa asks.

Georgie laughs again. The laughs are coming out uglier and uglier. “Did you not notice the fact he fucking hates me?”

“Okay, then, ‘hey, I totally banged Robbie, but it’s cool because we’re open, right?’” Melissa says. “Because I’m cool with you fucking other people, but not people you’ve got like, history with.”

“He has a boyfriend,” Georgie says.

“That’s not really an answer,” Melissa says.

“I —” Georgie says. “It kind of is. Robbie doesn’t cheat.”

“And if he didn’t have a boyfriend?” Melissa says.

“Remember the hating me thing?” Georgie asks.

“Okay, but like, if he didn’t—” Melissa says.

“Yeah, but those hypotheticals aren’t going to happen, so they’re kind of irrelevant,” Georgie says.

“Can you just straight up say, ‘no, I’m not going to fuck Robbie’,” Melissa says.

“I’m not going to fuck Robbie,” Georgie says, and he can say it with confidence, because Robbie won’t fuck him. If Robbie walked up to his door and asked, he’s not sure he’d be strong enough to turn that down, any bit of Robbie he could hold onto, but like he said, it’s irrelevant, because that’s the sort of opportunity he’s never going to have again.

“Okay,” Melissa says.

“Okay,” Georgie says.

“Can we talk about something other than Robbie now?” Melissa asks.

‘You brought it up’, Georgie doesn’t say, just, relieved, says, “Please.”


End file.
